An introduction of me: I am Kevin Brault, a candidate for Ward 6 Councillor. I am a life long resident of Valley East. I have 11 years of varied experience in the workforce, 7.5 of those years in some variety of public service. I believe in the 3 Ds of democracy, Discussion, Decorum, and Decades. Good governments are not made unilaterally but are formed with honest discussion and debate and evolve over time into institutions that the public can trust to act in their best interest with continued and constant consultation between the elected and the electorate. I feel that at present the level of trust our council holds with the pubic is egregiously low, and if elected a focus of my term would be public engagement and re-building the relationship between the people and their government. It will never be perfect, this I know, but it can be much much better. I promise the ward HAT. Honesty Accountability and Transparency. My top priorities for the city include: Permanent arms length AG office, armed with the ability to be provided with any and all documentation from TDS. Greater Sudbury is one of the few municipalities to only demand a 1 year guarantee on road work; as other cities have we should have 2-3 year guarantee depending on project; we have a right to expect contractors to provide the road they promised at a reasonable quality, after all we do pay for it. I feel the outlying areas of the city are overlooked and under represented. Sudbury proper has a majority on council so whatever Sudbury wants, Sudbury gets. This not an uncommon problem, metro-centrism is a problem not only in Sudbury, but at the provincial level with Toronto and even in the UK with London. The Brits have already embarked on this journey, of gently reminding, not bashing people over the head, that outskirts are often forgotten. I believe a voice on council that points these failures out in a constructive way will find support from Sudbury proper Councillors to address these problems. I would partner not only with the other outskirt wards, but with all of council to see that everyone, and every neighbourhood gets treated fairly. I know people love to complain about city workers, but I see them as a resource, not a problem. If city employees are not getting the work done as it should in a reasonable time, what has management done to rectify this? Why has CGS been to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal and been found to have breached their employees human rights? Why is there such an adversarial relationship between staff and management? I personally know a city employee, a diabetic person, who was written up for refusing to skip lunch. The city should be a model employer, not a check list of what not to do. We pay our city administrators top salaries, and we are told this is the cost of business, if we want good administrators we have to pay for them. I have no issue paying the going rate, but top shelf salary means top shelf administration and that is certainly not what I am seeing at present. There is a persistent problem in the public sector with those who over see budgets and ensuring they spend every penny so they do not have to function with a reduced budget next year. If we changed the focus from a mangers to budget to their mandate to deliver the services they are to provide I believe we would see cost reductions from the wasted money in this spend it or it disappears mentality. I would bring a motion forward that would stipulate no department would have their operations budget cut solely on the fact of 1 or 2 years of surplus. Budget surpluses can be returned to the coffers and used for other projects. I believe if administrators feel more secure that next years budget will be sufficient, the idea of frivolous spending so it looks good on paper will subside. Changing a culture is never easy or fast, but I am committed to changing the culture between staff and management, between managers and their budgets, and perhaps most importantly between council and the public. We can have a city government we can all be proud of that will work for the people, it will take plenty of elbow grease but I am more the prepared for the challenge. Thank you for your time Kevin
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 20:01:42 +0000
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